


The In-Betweens

by orphan_account



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Kitt Purrson - Freeform, M/M, mentions of zimbits, morose holidays, past loss of parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 02:11:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8692381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "Anything is possible.  The good stuff.  The bad stuff.  The in-betweens.
But it’s okay.  They’ve also learnt how to be okay.  With fingers tangled together and the gentle press of lips to skin.  These moments get them through, for as long as they’re allowed to have it."





	

**Author's Note:**

> For anon who wanted fluff, but you get angsty fluff because...just because.
> 
> Kind of working out some of my own grief here, so be warned if loss of parent grief triggers you. It's not in graphic detail, but could be upsetting to some.

The condo is dark--darker than it should be with Kent’s car parked out front, and the last text on Alexei’s phone reading, ‘Yeah babes, I’m home.’

But all the lights are off, and almost all the curtains are pulled shut. There’s not a single note of Britney or Katy blaring through the iPod dock. Nothing’s cooking, nothing’s been delivered, even though Kent’s message just prior to that read, ‘I got my own dinner, no worries.’

So when Alexei sets his bag down by the door and closes it, he’s worried. He’s worried because sometimes life becomes a little Too Much for his boyfriend. Living apart more than half the year, weekends broken into little bits because when Kent has a three day stretch off, Alexei’s on a roadie, and they get less than a day to spend in each other’s arms before Kent’s jetting off to what feels like the other side of the universe--late night skype their only way to connect.  
He’s worried because maybe there was something hidden in those texts he missed, because it’s hard to read tone, and it’s easy to let Kent slip if he’s not paying attention.

Kit comes rushing out of the back room, and Alexei drops to a crouch as the furry little beast winds herself through his legs like a hairy figure-8. She stops when he scritches her right under her chin, the way he learnt she likes best--the way he’d won her trust. She looks up at him with her big, green eyes and he sighs at her.

“Where’s your papa?” he asks in Russian. She murrs at him, and backs up, and he knows she wants him to follow her into the kitchen.

If her food is still in the fridge, untouched, he knows there’s a bigger problem.

But no. Her dish is mostly empty, but what’s left is fresh, and in the fridge her nightly portion is gone. So she was just trying to cute her way into another helping.

“Nice try,” he says, and decides it’s time to find his boyfriend.

He’s not in any of the rooms downstairs. The TV cold, the office as bare as it always is. There’s no sound of water, so he’s not in the bath, and the back garden’s swing is swaying in the breeze, but the cushions are empty.

Up the stairs, Alexei peeks into the guest room. It’s the one which has the reading nook in the window sill, but it hasn’t been touched. Sometimes Kent likes to think there, to curl up and watch the Providence shoreline. It’s a clear night, so it would be good for it.

But Kent isn’t there.  
Alexei pulls his arm tighter round himself, and adjusts the thermostat because it’s chilly in the house. The early December bite eats through the sleeves of his shirt, but the heat kicks on quickly with a thunk, and that sort of musty heater smell.

He moves into their bedroom, and when he finds it empty too, he starts to feel a little panicked. But then he turns and notices the door to their walk-in closet is cracked, and he sees the faint glow of a light.

A cell phone screen.

If Kent’s in there well...

He isn’t sure what that means.  
It’s new.

Pushing on the door, Alexei pokes his head in, and his eyes take a minute to adjust to the dark. The cell phone is on, but lying near Kent’s ankle. He’s against their one bit of bare wall, his knees curled into his chest. His cheek is resting sideways against them, smooshed, making his left eye crinkle.

He doesn’t totally acknowledge Alexei’s presence, but he doesn’t flinch or pull away when Alexei settles himself down. His knees and hips ache on the floor like that, it’s almost immediate, and reminds him yet again retirement might not be so far off anymore.  
The thought used to terrify him. But when he realised he could reach out and put his hands on something he loves even more than hockey, the idea of retiring stopped feeling like a giant pool of void meant to drown him.

“Solnyshko.”

Kent’s only reply is a barely-there sigh.

“Is problem? I can fix? I’m miss something?”

There’s a long pause, and Alexei knows better than to push. Kent is a lot of things. Mostly he’s been a lesson in patience, and Alexei has discovered he possesses a well of it he was previously unaware of. But it’s there, and he puts his head against an empty wardrobe bag, and he waits.  
“It’s almost Chanukah.”

Alexei blinks in the dark, and pushes his leg out so their ankles touch. Kent doesn’t pull away. “Yes. We have...plan to spend with Zimmboni.”

That...was the plan, he thought. They’d been talking about it most of the year. Kent and his mom didn’t get along very well, and his sister’s staying in London. Neither of them have enough time to take off to fly to Russia. But Bob and Alicia were coming to Providence and Jack had invited them.

Kent had actually seemed excited.

Until no, which Alexei didn’t understand.

“You are...want a hug?” he offers, because he’s not really sure what else to do, and Kent hasn’t said anything in a little while.

A long moment goes by, and Alexei thinks that’s going to be ignored as well, but then Kent pushes up onto all fours and crawls--a little bit like Kit, in a way--across the short distance and curls up between Alexei’s legs. He spreads them into a V, in spite of the protesting in his hips--makes a note to speak with his trainer about it tomorrow.

For now though, he can weather it. He barely feels it because Kent is curled up against him, nuzzling the front of his shirt, breathing him in like he might be able to physically become part of Alexei if he tries hard enough. Alexei understands this feeling.

Sometimes he’s overwhelmed with it, too. In bed, on quiet nights, when Kent is pressed along the length of his body and Alexei loves him so damn much that this physical touch just isn’t enough. He wants more. He wants Kent in a way he doesn’t think is possible.

Kent’s like that now. His callused, long, slender fingers are roaming all over Alexei, pressing harder than usual, searching for bare skin, and tugging lightly at the soft curls at Alexei’s nape that never get any longer, now matter how often he forgets a haircut.

Kent’s mouth has found Alexei’s neck, and is open, pressed against Alexei’s pulse point as though he’s trying to swallow his heartbeat. He’s not really moving, just sort of...existing there now. Against him.

Alexei doesn’t mind it. He just tucks his hands under Kent’s pert ass and lifts him up and holds him as close as he can manage.

“You tell me,” he whispers. “I’m can’t fix if you not say.”

Kent’s head is shaking and his breath has the barest tremble to it. “You can’t fix it.”

“Why?” Alexei asks.

“Because you can’t rewind time.”

For a moment, a flash of jealousy and pain, Alexei thinks maybe Kent is talking about Jack because every now and again Kent gets morose and laments the one who got away. And Alexei knows there’s nothing actually there, and he more than anyone understands the pain of missed opportunities, but sometimes it stings that he can’t be everything to Kent, as irrational as that is.  
But then Kent says, “You can’t bring back the dead, either,” and it hits Alexei like a ten tonne truck because he’s not talking about Jack.

He’s talking about his father. Who died several months ago. And Kent hadn’t been there. Kent had been at home, and fighting with his mother, and his father had been trying to placate him which only made Kent angrier.

Then, not seventy-two hours later, he got the message.

‘Dad had a stroke. He was dead before they got him to the hospital. You need to come home.’

Home, for Kent, was somewhere between New York, France, and Israel. His father had come from Tel Aviv, had been on a job in Normandy when he met Kent’s mother, had moved to New York to raise their kids.  
Kent, who had a toxic relationship with their orthodox mother who did not approve of Kent’s choice to be secular, or play hockey, be rich, be gay. She loved Kent, but not enough to accept these things about her child, and it destroyed Kent little by little every time they spoke, and Alexei was there to breathe life back into those hollow spots she left every time Kent tried to be a good son--and was reminded he was never enough.  
Kent was close with his father, though. He resented him, for never sticking up for Kent a little. For telling Kent that his mother was wrong, but never telling her. For letting Kent suffer her sharp barbs and angry looks, and constant vitriol about the state of his soul. But he’d loved him.

Then he’d died.

And Kent had...dealt with it. In his own way. After the funeral, when Kent said it stopped hurting every single second of every single day, he dealt with it. He did all the right things. Went to his therapist, took his meds, spoke with Jack, ate the pies Bitty sent.

He cried on Alexei’s shoulder during his bereavement absence, then fucked him when the tears finally stopped. He let Alexei help him feel better until he was smiling--real smiles--again.

But Alexei knew the sadness didn’t just end. And he knew Kent going through the motions wouldn’t last forever. So this...this. It wasn’t a surprise, really.  
Not totally.

Alexei lifts Kent’s chin with his fingers, carefully telegraphing his intentions before kissing Kent full on the mouth. Kent didn’t pull away. He clung tighter, opened his mouth to it, let Alexei’s tongue slide against his own. He breathed hard through his nose, his breath brushing along Alexei’s cheeks as his fingers dug a bruising grip into Alexei’s sides.  
“I’m sorry, solnyshko.”

Kent shakes his head. “The other holidays were hard but...we were working. I didn’t have a lot of time for anything besides skating and sleeping. But this is...” He stops and blinks. Alexei can see the movement, even in the dark closet, and he moves his fingers from Kent’s chin to his cheek, holding it there as Kent nuzzles into his palm.

“I’m here,” he says. “I’m have you. Not let go. Not ever.”

He can feel more than he can see the curve of Kent’s smile, the upturn of lips pressed against the heel of his hand, and he strokes where he knows Kent has a cluster of freckles, just to the left of his nose, right under his eye. Kent hates that spot, but Alexei loves it so much. Reminds him of galaxies in deep space.

“Thanks,” Kent says after a little while. He pulls away, but only to rest his head in the crook of Alexei’s neck, and he can feel the flutter of Kent’s lashes as his eyes close.

“We are stay in here tonight? Or you want sleep in bed? Or in window seat?” They’re all genuine questions. Now isn’t the time for chirping, and Alexei knows that Kent knows that.

“We can move. I uh. I came in here to find my socks, then I found this box of photos Kait sent me and I um. I got sad.”

Alexei feels a sort of triumph that Kent is in a place he can just give his emotions words, even if it’s something as simple as, ‘I got sad.’ Because not two years ago Kent was still trying to make the connection from his heart to his mouth, and when he couldn’t express himself he would just get so angry.

“Sad is okay,” he says.

Kent huffs a very tiny laugh. “I know, babe.”

And Alexei feels triumph at that, too, because it is one.

There’s a long pause, several beats where they just sit together, and even though Alexei can now feel the sharp sting of his joints a little more than before, he doesn’t move. Not until Kent shifts himself off Alexei’s thighs and stands up, and offers a hand down.  
“Come on. We can put NCIS on in bed. I queued up all the shit you missed. Good game, by the way.”

“We lose,” Alexei says dryly, allowing the moment to normalise as he lets Kent draw him into the bedroom. Kent flicks one bedside lamp on as Alexei tugs at his shirt, and strips down to his boxers.

Kent, who hates sleeping in anything besides warm pyjamas during winter in Providence, digs through his drawers and gets out his Falconers ones that Jack bought him as a joke, though Alexei knows he secretly likes them best.

There’s a hole in the t-shirt now, along the hem, and Alexei likes to push his finger into it and draw careful circles on Kent’s ribs. It’s grounding for them both, sweet and soft. They don’t get this a lot--not in public, not on the ice, so Alexei clings to these moments when he can.

He pulls down the blankets as Kent flicks the TV on, and the show begins, a sort of absent thrum in the background. Alexei’s too tired to really pay attention. He’ll have to re-watch tomorrow, but he doesn’t mind. For now he gets this, the warm body pressed against his. Kent lays his cheek over his right pec, and curls one arm over his waist, one leg wrapped round Alexei’s like an octopus.

“You and Zimms were good though. Your assist was gorgeous.”

Alexei smiles at that, presses a kiss to the top of Kent’s hair. “He tells me this too.” He brushes his fingers along the short hairs at Kent’s nape, then down his back, and Kent lets out a slow, easy breath. “You want to go to shelter tomorrow? Play with kittens?”

“You just wanna go because you like the way Kit acts like I cheated on her when I come home.”

Alexei hums. “I’m want to play with puppies. Maybe next season adopt.”

“Marry me first,” Kent says.

Alexei laughs, because he knows he will. He’s got a plan and everything, and one of these days Kent is gonna say that and it won’t be a joke, and Alexei will pull out a ring. Not this year. This year is for mourning and moving on. But soon, he thinks.

“Okay. We elope to Vegas. Find Elvis,” he says instead.

The smile on Kent’s face tells Alexei that he’s not joking either. That one day Alexei is going to make the joke and Kent’s going to pull out plane tickets and when they get there, Kent will have already made reservations for the chapel.

The thought warms him to his toes, so much he has to draw Kent up and kiss him again, then again, then again.

“You are feel okay now?” he asks.

Kent settles back down. “No,” he answers honestly. Another triumph-that he’s comfortable enough to just tell the truth, and know that it won’t all fall apart if everything isn’t sunshine and roses. “I feel like shit and I fucking miss my dad, and it feels like something’s just gnawing away at my insides.”

Alexei says nothing. There’s nothing he can say. This year it’ll be nice because Bob and Alicia love Kent like their own, and Kent loves them back. And things are good with Jack and Bitty, and Kent also loves Alexei. But it’ll also be sad and Kent won’t be his usual self, and that needs to just be allowed.

Reaching over, Alexei flicks the TV off, and Kent rolls away to turn out the light. In the dark, the room still chilly in spite of the gentle, blowing heat, they wrap around each other. It’s steady. It’s constant. They’ve both lost people they love though, and their idea of mortality is too real. They’ve had first hand experience with knowing now how things can just end on you, with no way to get them back.

Nothing feels like a forever anymore.

Anything is possible. The good stuff. The bad stuff. The in-betweens.

But it’s okay. They’ve also learnt how to be okay. With fingers tangled together and the gentle press of lips to skin. These moments get them through, for as long as they’re allowed to have it. And it’s that thought which eases Alexei into a quiet slumber, the softest smile on his lips.


End file.
